ABSTRACT
Originally arising from the development of processes for fabricating microelectronics, micro-scale devices are typically classified according not only to their dimensional scale, but their composition and manufacture. Nanotechnology is generally considered as ranging from the smallest of these micro-scale devices down to the assembly of individual molecules to form molecular devices. These two distinct yet overlapping fields of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and nanosystems or nanotechnology share a common set of engineering design considerations unique from other more typical engineering systems. Two major factors distinguish the existence, effectiveness, and development of micro-scale and nanoscale transducers from those of conventional scale. The first is the physics of scaling and the second is the suitability of manufacturing techniques and processes. The former is governed by the laws of physics and is thus a fundamental factor, while the latter is related to the development of manufacturing technology, which is a significant, though not fundamental factor. Due to the combination of these factors, effective micro-scale transducers can often not be constructed as geometrically scaled-down versions of conventional-scale transducers.
